Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, has
criticised the two frontline
candidates in the March 28
presidential election, President
Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples
Democratic Party and Maj. Gen.
Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) of the
All Progressives Congress.


Soyinka, in an interview with the
BBC on Monday, insisted that the
political parties should have come
up with far better options than the two leading candidates.

He described President Jonathan,
who is running for a second term
and the opposition leader, Buhari,
as “problematic candidates.”
“There is a huge albatross hanging
[around] the necks of the two main candidates. I can understand the dilemma which many voters have,” Soyinka said.

He added that “one contender is
troubled by the present, the other
by the past.” Soyinka also decried the lack of fair play in the election, saying the spirit of “let’s have a fair war” was not yet deep enough.

He faulted Jonathan for the failure to rescue the more than 200 schoolgirls abducted from Chibok in
April 2014.
“What happened was a clear failure of leadership – a slow reaction, an inadequate reaction and response,” Soyinka told the BBC.
He stressed that while responsibility for the
Boko Haram crisis rested with
President Jonathan, the
government could not be held
solely responsible for the entire
jihadist problem as it began under
previous governments.
“Buhari and his partner, the late
Gen. Tunde Idiagbon, after (former
military head of state) Sani Abacha,

I think they represented the most
brutal face of military dictatorship.
There is no question about that,”
Soyinka said.
“But the environment changes,
circumstances change and… I look
at the possibility of a genuine
internal transformation in some
individuals. I’ve been disappointed
before and we must always be
ready to be disappointed again,” he added.

Soyinka, however, said Nigerians
should be ready to “go back to the
trenches stand up against misrule
from whoever wins the election.
“Nigerians should be prepared to
deal with any new betrayal by any ruler with the same passion and commitment…. as they did with the late Sani Abacha because we cannot continue this cycle of
repetitious evil and
irresponsibility.” On what to do to counter the Boko Haram sect, whose activities was cited for the postponement of the
election, Soyinka called for “an
aerial bombardment with weapons of the mind” in addition to the military offensive.
“All kinds of propaganda leaflets
should have been raining in those
areas because not all members of
Boko Haram are convinced. They
need to know there is an exit and
the state will take care of them.
Then the waverers’ minds have to
be reinforced on the positive side –on the side of humanity.
“The kind of propaganda being
used now between the political
parties, just a fraction of that
should have gone into attacking
Boko Haram,” he added.

Asked whether he believed the
nation could be dismembered in
the next 10 years, he said, “I doubt it very much. The threats of
dismemberment have been going
on so long that one of these days
there is going to be a wish fulfilled.
“The idea of either dismembering
at the cost of human lives, as the
Boko Haram people are trying to
do with their caliphate delusions or to force people to stay together as happened in the case of the
[1967-1970] Biafra war, doesn’t
make sense, it’s an abuse of
intelligence.
“Arrangements can be made in
which people stick together under
protocols of association which
allow some kind of autonomy for
certain issues and other cases
centralised policies,” he said.
Soyinka also noted that the huge
amount being expended on
campaigns would inevitably lead to broken electoral promises.
“What does this make of the
incoming government? This money came in from somewhere. It means such candidates are going to owe, they are obliged to interests which are not necessarily in the best interests of the nation.
“So, a lot of the electorate will be
disappointed at the failure – the
reneging on electoral promises –
because there may not be funds for the fulfilment of those promises,” he said.